Complete redesign and rebranding of the service as well as the launch of the application
Role
Sr. Product Designer → Head of Design
Year
2020-2023
Platforms
Web, iOS, Android
Yandex Travel is a comprehensive travel planning service offering hotel bookings, flight and train ticket purchases, as well as search for tour packages.
The app allows users to compare prices, receive cashback through the Yandex Plus program, and access 24/7 support.
13 mln
Monthly users
Market leader
By number of hotel reservations
1
Product design
When I joined the service in 2020, it hadn’t been updated for a long time. The team was in the process of contemplating future monetization models, and it was primarily a transactional service adjacent to Yandex Search (the main business of the big tech company).
Thanks to the team’s efforts, we changed the development strategy, completely redesigned key user scenarios, and launched an app to transition to a full-fledged service model with high retention rates.
what I succeeded
Completely updated key user scenarios and design of products
Updated the brand and increased the metric of spontaneous awareness by tens of percent
Launched an app from scratch which briefly increased conversion to key service indicators
We updated flight search results, making the results themselves more compact while also more informative
Most of the changes are related to the product, although there are many visual updates as well. After a series of in-depth interviews and UX tests, we made the search results more informative.
We moved the filters to the first page and redesigned the hotel snippet by removing unnecessary information (such as the address) and adding useful details (like the price per night, a larger photo, favorites, etc.).
For the app launch, we rethought every stage of the user journey, focusing on key metrics as well as user convenience.
As a result, we managed to make the service’s main scenarios more user-friendly, which directly impacted the metrics—they increased significantly compared to the web version of the service.
The approach to style also changed: we made it more dynamic and incorporated brand elements (more on this below).
Unlike the web version, we decided to split the hotel selection process into two stages: choosing a hotel and selecting a room on separate pages. This approach reduces cognitive load and allows users to first focus on exploring the hotel and then proceed to choose a room.
2
Brand design
I was responsible for the entire customer journey in the product, from the moment a person starts searching for a vacation hotel online to the point when they check out of the hotel and think about their next trip.
To ensure the customer journey was well-designed, we worked on all stages (booking - getting ready - experiencing - sharing) of the user path.
Entry points for booking on the Yandex Travel portal were developed, a separate application for the hotel chain was designed, and as a killer feature, we were the first in Russia to launch the self-check-in function, where a person could receive a room card through a special kiosk.
what I succeeded
Designed an application for searching and booking hotels
Designed the interface for a self-check desk
Several screens from the hotel brand website. The task was to design the entire scenario for searching and booking a hotel from start to finish.
Examples of self-check-in kiosk screens. The main idea was to provide the ability to bypass reception, check-in, and receive a room key card, because according to our research, long waiting times in the lobby before check-in significantly negatively affected the user experience.
3
People and culture
In the photos is the entire startup team - about 10-15 people. With this team, we were able to launch a product in 4 months, from idea to several operating hotels, with a tested and confirmed product hypothesis that the product is successful and can be scaled
